The present invention pertains to the treatment of waste water and more particularly an inexpensive apparatus and process for aerating raw mine acid drainage and sewage prior to final treatment.
Present day mine acid and sewage treatment facilities require expensive equipment for pretreating waste liquid in order to reestablish the oxygen level therein. This is generally accomplished by spraying the liquid through the air with continuously operating pumps over a large area, requiring considerable land space and the expensive and continuous operation of electrical pumps with minimal results.
In addition, such methods of aeration are not sufficiently efficient and require subsequent expensive chemical treatment and/or ozone treatment.
It is a principal object of the present invention to provide aeration pretreatment of such liquid mine acid drainage or sewage which eliminates the aforementioned disadvantages and employs inexpensive, simple yet effective aeration techniques utilizing the gravity flow of the waste liquid being treated and an aerator which is both inexpensive to construct and operate.